May19: "Deep Mexican Night," Cranked Up to Ten, "Trillium"

Billy Collins on vacation . . . 

Deep Mexican Night

by: Martin Achatz

You can hear them playing jai-alai

from this flowering terrace,

the distant rebounding ball,

and the fans with their strange cheer:

"Jai-alia-aiiahh-jaih-jaaiihaahaha!"

At night, the volume of everything seems cranked up to ten.  Crickets.  Barking dogs.  Peepers from a nearby lake.  And, according to Collins, a game of jai alai.

Maybe it's because all the noise of the day has gone to bed, leaving the world empty as the Grand Canyon.  Everything becomes amplified, even the stars and moon and trees.

I often stand in my backyard at midnight or later, just to be a part of the show.  I've seen skunks and deer, meteors and auroras.  Nearly drowned in an ocean of lilacs.  Whistled with crickets.  Wondered at a galaxy of dandelions under my bare feet, making me feel as if I was strolling through the universe.

I have a patch of trillium that blooms on my property line.  No idea how they came to be there, but they return year after year, multiplying like life-sick ghosts.  They are blooming now, singing their spring song.

Saint Marty is heading outside now to listen to them.

Trillium

by: Martin Achatz

On this Pentecost night,

I mistake them for

tongues of white flame

preaching to the dark

in the language of grass.

January 28: It's Late, Crickets, Prayer of Change

It's late.  Almost 10 p.m.  My kids had another day off from school.  I had another day off from teaching.  In fact, aside from working at the medical office, I didn't do anything productive today.  I think it has something to do with the cold.  It made me want to grab a blanket, sit on the couch, eat enough junk food to feed a small African nation, and watch episodes of The Big Bang Theory.  Maybe I'm pregnant.

The weather's going to be changing tomorrow.  It will be a good twenty or thirty degrees warmer.  That means schools will reopen.  My daughter will have dance class.  I will have to teach.  Everything will return to restart.  Change.  E. B. White writes of change in Charlotte's Web:

The crickets felt it was their duty to warn everybody that summertime cannot last forever.  Even on the most beautiful days in the whole year--the days when summer is changing into fall--the crickets spread the rumor of sadness and change.

I know that life is about change.  Sometimes that change brings sadness.  Sometimes it brings joy.  I am not a big fan of change, as many of my constant readers know.  In the past, change hasn't been good to me.  I've been struggling over the last year because of change in my work situations.  Mental illness.  Addictions.  Marital strife.  All these changes have caused me a lot of problems.


But I've come through these changes.  Stronger.  Smarter.  Better.  I'm still not a fan of change.  However, I know I can't avoid it.  I won't embrace it, buy it a negligee, take it home, and ravish it until daylight.  But I also won't take it down a dark alley and pop a cap in its ass.  I will accept it.  Period.

Dear God of change,

I know everything happens for a reason.  I know that light comes with darkness.  Warm with cold.  Happiness with sadness.  You can't have one without the other.

This may come as a surprise, but I want to say thanks for the changes in my life.  If I'm in the middle of a difficulty, I know You're going to see me through.  And that's enough to keep me going.

One little request:  less challenge, more success.  Please.

Your loving servant,

Saint Marty

Food for thought for all my atheist readers.  Change is good.  Even changing your minds.